South Korea proposes high-level talks with North

PanARMENIAN.Net - South Korea has proposed high-level talks next week with rival North Korea to discuss resuming reunions of Korean War-divided families, the Associated Press reports.

Seoul's Unification Ministry in a statement Monday, Aug 11, said it suggested meeting Aug 19 at the North Korean side of the truce border village of Panmunjom. The Koreas last had a high-level meeting in February.

Since then, North Korea has conducted an unusually large number of missile and artillery tests. Pyongyang has also insulted South Korea's leader, calling her 'a prostitute', and expressed fury over U.S.-South Korean military drills.

The latest six-day family reunions in February were the first such meetings in more than three years.

The Korean Peninsula is technically in a state of war because the Korean War ended in 1953 with an armistice, not a peace treaty.